Many different types of electrical products today are modular and include one or more interface units to increase and/or enhance the operational characteristics of the product. These types of products generally have a dedicated type of interface module meaning the interface unit is specifically designed to be electrically integrated with a host device through the use of some type of electrical connector or the like. Each module must be designed such that the interface will be electrically compatible with the connector on the host device.
As seen in prior art FIG. 1, the typical modular interface system 100 would include a module 101 that may be a stand alone accessory device or similar interfacing with a host device 105. The module 101 includes a module connector 103 that interfaces with a corresponding host connector 107 on the host device 105. The module connector 103 and host connector 107 connect through as dedicated serial interface 109. The dedicated serial interface 109 connects one or more dedicated serial pins allowing the module 101 to communicate with the host device 105. The remainder of the pins are configured to form a dedicated pin interface 111 in these connectors to provide communication and compatibility between the module 101 and host device 105. An example of such an arrangement might be a remote control head used for a mobile public service radio. The control head communicates through the dedicated serial interface 109 while one or more additional pins are dedicated to other control or communications functions.
The difficulty with this arrangement is that the dedicated pin interface 111 used for each module 101 cannot be reconfigured such that other modular or peripheral devices connected to the host 105 must now absolutely conform to the pin arrangement used by the host device in order to be compatible. This can lead to great difficulty since interface devices (not shown) must be configured between the module 101 and host 105 in order for the module to interface properly and be fully functional.
Thus, the need exists to provide a re-configurable interface system that can self-extract module or accessory configuration information from a module or accessory interface enabling any interface module to electrically interface and/or communicate with a host device.